


With All Your Secrets To Defend

by JDylah_da_Kylah



Series: Hope Was A Word, Just A Glimmer Of The Blade [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Jedi Apprentice Series - Jude Watson & Dave Wolverton, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Abreaction, And He Actually Gets One!, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Catharsis, Depends on how you look at it, Dialogue Heavy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, Forbidden Love, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Bant Eerin, Force Ghost Qui-Gon Jinn, Friendship/Love, Gen, Heavy Angst, I Made Myself Cry, Illustrated, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Lucid Dreaming, M/M, Making Love, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Nightmares, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Survivor Guilt, almost, but close enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-21 14:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18143423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JDylah_da_Kylah/pseuds/JDylah_da_Kylah
Summary: He should have known that the Order was crumbling; his own life whispered of as much--the cracks, the flaws, the complacency and arrogance. But Obi-Wan can't bring himself to bear anger against his Master or the Council--against so many ghosts and haunted memories. Far easier it is, in the shadow of the shattered Order, to be his own prosecution, jury and judge.. . . But not if Qui-Gon has anything to say about it.Or: "Between the cities and the temple,between the jury and the judge,gavel pounds down like thunderthat’s inside of all of us."





	With All Your Secrets To Defend

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a continuation of ["Just Once, To Be Lifted Strong"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17910410), so I guess I'm making a series out of it. (Why does this keep happening!?) I don't think you _need_ to have read that to read this, although it does set up my headcanon dynamic between Obi-Wan and Force ghost Qui-Gon.
> 
> Please pardon the excessive italics; I didn't expect dreams to become the bulk of the story, and once they did . . . well. I really, really didn't want to go back and reformat everything. I rest on the laurels of laze.
> 
> The title, "Or:", and inspiration come from Gregory Alan Isakov's ["Was I Just Another One?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdOild3rDx0):
> 
> "Did you ever find the garden  
> where the doves go to bathe?  
> Did you open up your heart there  
> or were you quiet and afraid?
> 
> Did you light up every lantern,  
> your flame whipping against the wind?  
> Or did you fall back to the alleys  
> with all your secrets to defend?
> 
> Between the cities and the temple,  
> between the jury and the judge,  
> gavel pounds down like thunder  
> that’s inside of all of us.
> 
> Were we kids out in the desert?  
> Or birds running 'cross the sun?  
> Did I stumble through your darkness?  
> Or was I just another one?"
> 
> (Further inspiration for Obi-Wan's psychological state came from Caleb Hyles' cover of ["Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbb2v-9WXD0). Holy balls but that hit me in the feels . . . and from the comments section, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one to immediately think of Obi-Wan.)
> 
> Reviews and thoughts are always welcome! <3 Thank you so much for reading, and I do hope you enjoy! _(Illustrations coming soon!)_

_The city of Theed, on Naboo. The reactor core. Silent and dark and eerily still, as if every power bank has been cut and plunged the building into an unholy night. There is not even the mechanized hum from cleaning droids or the subtle whine of air being circulated through the ventilation shafts, and the place feels as cold and stale as the mausoleums on Melida/Daan._

_Obi-Wan crouches in the darkness, carefully regulating his breath, wishing he could slow the pounding of his heart that echoes far too loudly in his ears. Odd, that he cannot; was control of his body’s autonomic systems not one of the first things he had been taught as a youngling . . . ? But it doesn’t seem to matter now . . ._

_Reflexively he activates his lightsaber, hoping its blade will guide him. The light of the Force feels distant, no matter how he reaches for it—and again from some idle place, as if outside himself, he registers the sickened twisting of his gut: how the presence of the Dark Side always affects him—_

_One sweep of his eyes around the room and the reason is clear._

_It is filled with corpses, preserved perfectly however they had fallen. As the cerulean glow of his blade passes over them, they stir, as gently as sleepers wakened by the morning sun. With hollow eyes they stare at him, and the core begins to echo and resound with whispers which at first he doesn’t hear because his gaze falters, catches, for he knows their visages too well—_

_Cerasi and Bruck and Xanatos and Tahl . . ._

_. . . and Bant, whose death he had not seen as much as_ felt _. . ._

_Countless more, caught in the shadows. Faces he cannot quite recall, names which have long since faded from his tongue. Even nondescript piles of droids—but does the Force not flow through them, too?_

_Each of them, in turn, at the passing of his blade, looks up and whispers: always the same: his name slipped across thickened, bloodied tongues, spat around cracked teeth, choked near-soundlessly from the severed windpipe of a broken neck._

_Obi-Wan’s grip tightens on the hilt of his saber, reaching again, fumbling desperately for the Force. For light. For . . . hope . . . For something, anything, to wrap around himself as a shield from these horrors. And for a moment he is locked in stillness, motionless, for the shadows of his fallen friends and foes make no more movement than he—and it has been a long, long time indeed since fear has frozen him._

_From the depths of the chute leading down to the reactor itself leaps a figure, black-clad, hooded, carrying in his arms a shapeless bundle. He lands with an unnatural gait and stumbles, a strangled cry breaking from his lips. Obi-Wan shudders, catching a glimpse of rotted fangs and yellow eyes . . . and a face he will never be able to forget . . ._

_The Zabrak Sith tosses back his hood with a shake of his head, the fabric catching and tearing on his horns. “So you see what I have become.”_

_Not at first—but as the shock of seeing Maul wears off, Obi-Wan begins to take in a greater horror: the bundle he carries is the charred torso of—_

_A ragged glance draws him down past Maul’s midsection; wrapped in his cloak, the Jedi can’t see the junction, the cybernetic parts, but there, at his hips—_

_Those legs are Human—and Maul has made them his._

_Obi-Wan closes his eyes at last, lightsaber deactivated and falling from his hand as he bows his head, tremors wrenching him. He cannot move. He cannot think. He cannot fight. And yet the voice of the Sith echoes in his mind somehow more clearly than his own thoughts ever have—for have his thoughts not been filtered through experience, tempered with doubt, shaped and guided by the Code, by the teachings of the Jedi . . . ? What comes from Maul now is . . . raw . . . pure and raw as the lava that forms at last into igneous rock . . ._

_“I am the culmination of your rage.”_

_Maul steps closer, close enough to where the reeking of charred flesh crawls into the Jedi’s nostrils and the Zabrak’s fetid breath wafts across his face._

_“Look at what you have done. As if this room were not enough . . .”_

I did not kill—

 _“Not all of them. Nor all of them directly. But_ _. . .” Maul pauses, draws in a rattling breath. “Worse yet . . . whom did you leave for dead?”_

_—And even as Obi-Wan closes his eyes, he can see it, the image forever seared into his brain, the backs of his eyelids, so that even when he tries to sleep he cannot escape it: his friend, his brother, his former Padawan, gazing up at him from the bank of a molten river, amidst his agony pleading . . . “Help me, Master . . .”_

_“Oh, but what will you say?” Maul rasps. “You left him to the will of the Force? Is_ that _how you justify yourself?”_

I would not kill an unarmed man. Never.

 _“Was it an act of_ mercy _? Was the strike?”_

_The Zabrak draws still nearer, until their noses all but touch, and that nearness presses Ana—no—Vader’s dismembered body against the Jedi’s own._

_“Or did you give in to the Dark Side? It wouldn’t be the first time . . .”_

No . . .

_But the word is hollow, something he’s said too many times before: it’s lost all meaning. The whispered chorus of the dead seems to gather round him, swelling, slipping through the cracks of whatever pieces of himself Obi-Wan tries still to gather . . ._

_Maul moves swiftly, roiling up from his crouch into a lunge, a single, fluid stride on stolen flesh; the Jedi’s first instict is to reach for the body of— as if there’s still life— cradling that ravaged form as tenderly as he when he’d held the newborn son—_

_Only to hear the hum and flinch from the heat of the blood-red blade whisked across his eyes, hovering in the periphery of his vision, subtle and soft and terrible as the whispers of the dead. Instinctively he calls for his lightsaber, reaching for it through the Force—but Maul has already kicked it away—into the waiting hands of Bant’s empty form . . . whose lifeless silver gaze meets his without blinking in a way that makes his skin crawl . . . whose once-lithe, webbed fingers—now broken, torn and burnt—toy with the hilt, tracing patterns there that only they would recognize—at once echoing and defiling something sacred—something beautiful, Force-given, shared between them—it was not love—and not like his love for Qui-Gon, nor Qui-Gon’s love for Tahl—but something else—something as pure and bright as the Force itself—_

_Obi-Wan shudders, losing his grip on Vader’s body, curling in upon himself . . . not even_ that _memory—the two of them hidden by artificial nightfall in the Room of a Thousand Fountains . . . not even how they’d so gently known each other . . . how she’d touched him with such curious hands . . . there is nothing left,_ nothing _: nothing is safe or sacred anymore, and he buries his head in his hands and screams for the light._

* * *

_And the Light answers, gathering from itself the form of a man . . ._

* * *

_Qui-Gon glances around at what his Padawan’s mind has created from the darkest of memories, mildly surprised that he himself is not among the desecrated dead. His eyes linger for a moment on Tahl’s likeness, feeling a shadow of an ache, before he catches up with all the rest, faster even than he could in life: the faces, the voices, and the shadowed figure idly twirling a double blade, inching it closer to the head—to the heart by turn—of the man huddled at his feet._

_Ah, there. With the husk of Anakin’s body at his knees, Obi-Wan kneels—the Master of Soresu utterly defenseless now—head buried in his arms—and he is_ screaming _—fear, anger, shame, sheer Darkness pouring from him—_

* * *

<No.>

* * *

_A word, just a word between them through a bond which was never really broken, and Obi-Wan looks up. Blinks through tear-shot eyes. Light. There is light. There is light, and the room is silent. It is not even the reactor core . . . just undefined space, undefined existence . . . and light._

_And beyond Qui-Gon’s form there is another . . . a shadow . . . a silhouette he would recognize anywhere . . . But not like Qui-Gon: no: she is a specter of his mind . . ._

_She steps forward, half-focused . . . something held so tenderly within her grasp . . . and as he takes from her his lightsaber, Bant’s gentle, life-filled silver eyes meet his . . . and therein he knows, at last, that is nothing to be sorry for, no apology to give, nothing to regret . . ._

Nothing.

* * *

_Except it isn’t true. It’s just in his mind, and Bant is gone, and he will never know._

* * *

“These are your dreams?”

Obi-Wan wakes with a gasping breath, curled into a little alcove carved into the wall—one sure place of shade and cool during Tatooine’s unforgiving days. So strong is the fear of the nightmare that he instinctively reaches for the Force, feeling its reassurance cast as the coolness of a wading-pool, a waterfall, to counteract the desert’s heat. Something like a breeze plays across his sweaty face, and at last he opens sleep-encrusted eyes, blinking in the dying light of warring suns to find the shimmer of his Master at his so-called bedside.

The words are soft, carried as decibels which dare to shiver across the stagnant air, and Obi-Wan is grateful that even in this moment Qui-Gon remembers their promise . . . that the unspoken tethers of the Force-bond between them be relegated to dreams, to the unconscious . . . for it is not always seemly to speak of secrets in the waking light—or the darkness of the desert night.

Obi-Wan does not answer immediately, merely rolls from the alcove, offering movement as supplication to knotted, angry muscles. A glance through tiny, rough-hewn windows reveals that the suns are setting in a spray of fire and blood . . . A good thing that is: night brings a vigil over Luke. And it brings, too, sometimes, Tusken raiders . . . Never would he have thought that he’d ever look to conflict to ease his mind . . .

No. Not quite. But then he doesn’t need to think. Then he can slip into the stream of the Force and forget, just forget, because before him then in those hours of battle are realities which require nothing short of his full attention . . .

“Padawan.”

Obi-Wan carefully avoids eye contact with Qui-Gon, even as the glow surrounding him seems to follow him everywhere, is never fully absent from his gaze.

“Don’t turn away from me. Let me help. What can I—”

At last the Jedi Master, the General, Negotiator, turns then, silent still, fixing Qui-Gon with a gaze that once, just once, mirrored his own: when Tahl had died, and Obi-Wan had offered comfort . . . and something then in Qui-Gon had been lost—or darkly gained—

Qui-Gon keeps his expression calm, even as that look pierces him beyond reckoning; surely Obi-Wan must feel, too, the tremors through the Force—the pain—fresh and recollected—

_< Please. Obi-Wan . . .>_

Perhaps a rule too hastily broken—but—

But the man of flesh and blood, both pure and tortured, turns away, leaving in his shadow the Master bathed in light.

* * *

_Qui-Gon reaches out, calling through the Force—all that has been and all that is—wondering yet if she can hear him . . . or if she, like countless lives before her and countless lives to come, has become One, become inseparable . . ._

_Something whispers back to him, tremulous but steady, in answer to the name, the question he poses to her . . . Not something so great as to forget itself—but no: someone, someone, does answer him._

Please. Come with me . . . he needs you as much as he’s ever needed me . . .

_Into the Force—inextricably, himself, although he himself is but a speck of light—Qui-Gon offers guidance, comfort, hope, showing her the path—to form and name but half-forgotten for the Whole. The energy that was so unmistakably hers meets his, a river, a stream, an ocean—a song—and for the briefest of moments the face of a Mon Calamari with unassuming silver eyes flashes before him._

There is no death, there is only the Force, _she whispers._ We are transformed, not destroyed.

_But this is no mere exercise, passed from a Master to a Knight . . . no . . . There is nothing between them now and Qui-Gon’s fears for Obi-Wan are instantly her own, the purpose of his wisdom and his summons clear._

You have called me, Master Qui-Gon. I will come.

* * *

He is bone-weary and soul-sick when the suns begin to spread their daylong glare over the horizon—the never-ending chase, the war . . . A swig of blue milk—bartered for his warrior’s skill—slakes his thirst; a wretched stew from the meat and bones of some luckless canyon-dwelling mammal eases the hollow aching of his gut . . .

And then Obi-Wan curls up in the alcove, reaching for the Force, for the coolness there against him, the culmination of his being, letting himself be lost to the tide, the ebb and flow, letting it lull him—somehow—to sleep.

* * *

_The reactor core again . . . again the dead . . . Except this time the whispers become cries—hurling at him every doubt, every fear, every shred of blame he’s cast upon himself. Blinded by the darkness, he dares not draw his lightsaber but stumbles through the room—feet catching on bodies and limbs, on hands and feet, on broken droids and shattered bones—_

_Dimly he hopes that he might trip and fall—_

_Hadn’t Maul intended the reactor core to be_ his _fate?_

 _“Yes,” hisses someone at his ear. There is a shifting, and he knows that Maul is at his feet—just Maul this time—just how the barbaric strike of_ sai tok _left him—_

 _“You left_ me _,” adds another: a hoarse and ravaged voice softer still than the Zabrak’s whisper, but louder somehow than the worst of the screaming chorus, pouring out to him their agony, cast in the shape of his own actions, his choices, everything—_

 _And at his feet, too, there is another body, unmistakable, the marks of_ mou kei _forever, now, a part of him—machine or no—more machine than man he is—and Anakin is as good as dead—is worse than dead—_

_“Look at me!”_

_And the command that comes then is just the same as the raw decibles torn from the throat of the man stranded on the embankment of a hellish river, helpless, desperately trying to claw himself away from the lava with a mechanical hand—“I hate you!”—_

_Obi-Wan dares to step neither forward nor back; he feels them all pressing against him now, the sum of the dead, amassing their broken bodies at his feet, ensnaring him. He deserves this. Yes. And does it matter, really, that he foresakes the training instilled into him since the moment he could walk, letting the sway of them, the pressure, throw his balance . . .? Let him fall. Let them swallow him. Are they not calling for fitting retribution? Is it not just?_

“No!”

_That voice—he hasn’t heard it in—_

_And as the darkness closes in, as his balance leaves him and he can feel the void rise up to consume him—the press of charred flesh, the stumps of severed limbs, ripping fangs and snaring hands—_

_There explode above his head two green blades of light._

_And there is a broad hand at his shoulder, warm—his Master’s—_

_And there to catch him, cradle him, is—_

_He smells her—like a sea—tastes the salt of her skin—before he feels her gentle arms wrap around him, just holding him, as she has so many times before—_

_Through tears he blinks, staring—feeling the Force surging around him—knowing in his heart that this is not a figment—she is not—_

Bant . . .

_A small flicker of a smile before silver eyes take in the wreckage around them—including the twisted echo of what her own bodily form once had been. With utter tenderness she reaches for his belt, unhooking his lightsaber and pressing the hilt into his hand—_

_Neither for defense nor offense—for a saber is far more than mere weapon—_

_it is_

_light_

_Obi-Wan leans against Bant, his dearest friend, feels Qui-Gon standing at his shoulder—unseen lest he turn his head, but beautiful and powerful—_

_And dream or no, for the first time in so long, he is not alone to face the darkness, for at his side stands light—and so is he, himself._

* * *

_The reactor core is gone, and the three of them slip unto a world that Obi-Wan has never seen. He supposes, and accepts, that it is as likely the random firings of neurons in his brain as anything . . . but the companions at his side are not . . . the Force swirls too strongly around them to be otherwise . . . and that’s all that matters . . ._

_Carefully they pick their way across banks of smooth, dark stones; although markedly larger, they’re not unlike the rock Qui-Gon had given him, when he was but thirteen . . . and the whispered shallow river beneath them, stretching from one edge of the horizon to the other, brings to mind Bant’s gifts—not only the tiny trinkets they had exchanged over the years, hidden in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, but her friendship, her warmth, her compassion—_

_“Your dreams are dark and heavy, friend,”_ _Bant murmurs at last, reaching out across the stones upon which they dance, catching his hand in hers. He’s forgotten how much he’s missed it . . . a glance cast to Qui-Gon reveals nothing . . . but he senses through the Force that there are a great many things his Master wishes to discuss . . . “I am glad he called me here. I see now what he meant.”_

<. . . Master?>

 _Qui-Gon’s hand is again at his shoulder, promising an answer in due time._ <But for now, my Padawan, enjoy this time with your friend.>

_And the words strike him to the core—Bant’s hand in his—the smoothness of her skin playing with the textures of her webbed fingers, the suckers on her palms—and Obi-Wan bows his head, blinking back yet another rush of tears, struggling for words in a throat grown tight._

_When has he wept so much?_

_“You must need to weep.” Bant stills, halting his own progress, leaving him balanced atop a small, smooth stone, red streaks gleaming through it where the gentle light pierces through its darkness. “Have you_ ever _wept, my friend, for all that has happened?”_

At Qui-Gon’s death . . .

_The memory of his Master reaching up to stroke his cheek ricochets through him and he reels, clinging to Bant’s tunic, shaking._

_“Since then?” The prompting is not unkind. There is no judgement from his friend . . . but she must sense the answer, he need not give it, for a small sound escapes her, a hitched breath of her own, as if she cannot fathom the sorrow he has tried to bear in silence._

_Since his Master’s death, he had resolved never to give his sadness, his frustration, his fears, such power over him as to weep . . . not even as Anakin again and again showed glimpses of what he one day would choose to become . . . how he had longed to cry out to Qui-Gon for guidance, as if his Master could yet hear him . . . the loss of so many friends, even the deaths of foes, the slaughter of the younglings, the execution of the order that had damned them . . . that paved the way for the rise of the Empire . . ._

_And Anakin . . . his brother . . . Anakin, raising his blade against him . . . Anakin, with hate-filled eyes . . . the good man whom he could not save . . . against whom he had used the Forbidden Strike . . . As he piloted Padme’s craft away from Mustafar, what could he do but bury his head in his hands? Even then, he did not weep . . ._

_And in those shadows, too, there is all the loss before, the dead as continually haunt his dreams: Cerasi. Bruck. Even Xanatos, who chose to end his own life . . . Tahl . . ._

_But the more immediate answer is clear, and he will not hide the truth from Bant._

When Master Qui-Gon first came to me . . . like this . . .

<But even then you tried to hide your tears.> _Gently, the admonition; Obi-Wan throws another glance to Qui-Gon, who has retreated a few paces, giving the two of them both their time and space. But there is sorrow on his face as well, a mirror to Bant’s own, and for a long moment Obi-Wan doesn’t know quite what to say . . . there is no defense against this—the raw truth of their concern . . ._

_”Come here,” Bant whispers finally, placing her hands on his shoulders, drawing him close. “Then come here, my friend, and shed your tears.”_

_Reflexively he reaches out, one finger brushing at her cheek before his eyes are blurred and something as inexorable as gravity and as sacred as the Force pulls him to her. Bant steps gently across the water, that he need not move—for what has his life been but movement, but helping others?_ No, _her gesture says:_ Now you are the one in need of help, and here I am.

<We are,> _Qui-Gon echoes . . . but still there is distance kept . . . he might come to his Padawan in waking hours, or in dreams . . . might offer a shoulder of his own, a shuddered cathartic pleasured reckoning . . . but this moment, no, this is Obi-Wan’s and Bant’s alone._

_“Come here.”_

_And as she wraps her arms around him gently, memories of nearly losing her at the bottom of the pool wash over him—and then the harsh reality that he still lost her in the end—like so many others—_

Bant. _He cannot speak, and flings her name in wretched thought through the Force._ Bant, I am so sorry . . .

_And the thought can never be enough . . ._

_Her grip tightens; she can feel him tense, feel the tremors through his frame, his arms held awkwardly, as if he does not remember what it is to hug another being, to take comfort . . .  She reaches up to stroke his hair, coaxing him to drop his head against her shoulder, gathering more and more of his weight against herself, feeling him finally relinquishing his self-control—to trust, to light . . . to love._

_And the pain of it all breaks and scatters and Obi-Wan buries his head against her, clinging to her, letting the tears at last of a hundred lifetimes’ worth of sorrow fall, hearing and hardly believing the cries that are wrenched from the very core of his being. He has seen others grieve, has comforted them, has wiped their tears and gently stilled their shaking, quieted their anguished moans . . . but not even when Cerasi died did he so completely lose himself . . ._

_“A Jedi’s life is sacrifice,” Bant murmurs, the whole of her body steady and sure. “But we do not need to bear our grief alone, my friend . . . nor do we need to bury it . . . it will destroy us that way . . . it will become as dark and heavy as your dreams, my friend . . . so weep . . . do not be ashamed . . .”_

_And even as he sobs uncontrollably against her shoulder, even as he tastes the salt of her in his own tears, even as at last he lets himself be held—in a way that even Master Qui-Gon cannot know—he feels the Force between them all: the three of them: but especially, perhaps, in this moment, between himself and Bant. His tears are hers, and yes, now at last he knows the truth she speaks, the truth he dared not believe himself: that his grief he need not bear alone._

* * *

_“When your dreams are dark, my friend—when you see what your mind believes has become of me—think instead of_ me _, as I am now. I am whole, I am one with the Force, I am light, I am love, I am life.”_

_Bant continues rocking him; their cheeks are pressed together, sealed by the salt water of tears._

_“Come to this world in your dreams or in meditation; come when the fear or the sadness is too much to bear. Call for me, my dearest friend, and I will be here. Always.”_

* * *

_And then she is gone—but there is no sorrow now—and at his shoulder once again rests Qui-Gon’s hand._

* * *

<Would I be remiss to say that I caused so much of your sorrow?>

_Obi-Wan whirls so swiftly that his foot slips on the precariously smooth stone—but as Bant caught him before, his Master does so now—_

_And he blinks—_

_And the world of the river from horizon to horizon is no more, nor are the stones, although Obi-Wan can tell from the weight at his tunic’s inner breast pocket that he still carries his Master’s gift with him—will always._

_Now they are elsewhere. Still and deep, perhaps like one of the meditation chambers in the Temple—ah—but no—because the Temple was destroyed in flames and its halls echoed with—_

_Someplace still and deep. Formless. Yes. That is enough._

_He and Qui-Gon sit together, knee-to-knee, mirroring the cornerstone of meditative poses once again, heads bowed. Qui-Gon’s fingers delve gently into the valleys of his upturned palms, and Obi-Wan this time does not flinch away._

_But the question remains, and he does not know how to answer it._

<I called for Bant because I knew, with certitude, of that much—your deep and abiding love for her. I remember when you thought that she would die . . . and that fear, tangled with the loss of Cerasi, drove you into a panic . . .>

_Obi-Wan’s first instinct is to speak, if not to defend himself then at least to acknowledge his Master’s wisdom. But Qui-Gon does not let him get a word in edgewise: well enough he knows that his Padawan has used far too many words against himself._

<But.> _A calculated pause._ <That is not what I wish to discuss, Obi-Wan. I merely wanted you to know why I did what I have done . . . and it gladdens me to see how much good seeing Bant again has done for you.>

_His Master’s fingertips begin tracing subtle circles in his palms, and the original question resurfaces without Qui-Gon posing it again. Indeed, has it not hung between them, searching for an answer . . . ? There is uneasiness about it, pain, an anguish all its own . . ._

<Why do you ask if you have caused me sorrow, Master?>

_Because the answer to that question means more to Obi-Wan than, he thinks, any answer of his own might mean to Qui-Gon. After due consideration, the latter bows his head._

<I ask because I believe it to be true. There are a great many sorrows that have arisen from my actions . . . On you, my Padawan, I placed burdens that were too heavy for you to bear. You were nearly ready for the Trials—but not quite—and yet when we found Anakin . . . I became so consumed with training him that I dared to push you towards them early . . . We should have had more time.>

_Silence, for a moment, each of them revisiting the memory of Maul. Obi-Wan’s grip tightens on his Master’s hands; the grief, the rage, he felt then when the energy field gave way and he charged the Sith Lord pours from him . . . emotions that he could never admit to the Council, not even to Yoda . . . And tangled with that memory are those of his own fears that he had been granted the title of Jedi Knight when, oh, would that they had known . . . it was the emotions of the Dark Side that had led him to defeat the Sith . . ._

<And I bade you promise me to train the boy. My last words to you . . . were of my hopes not for you, but for another . . .> _Something catches in Qui-Gon’s voice, runs through it like steel._ <One so powerful . . . unpredictable . . . I was blinded by my hope, by faith . . . I failed you then, my Padawan. A Master must never ask more of their charge than they can handle . . . it was unfair to you, and equally unfair to Anakin . . .>

<I do not understand, even now, why the Council allowed me to train him,> _Obi-Wan confesses slowly._ <I felt as if I had not really passed the Trials; they granted me the rank of Knight solely because I defeated the Sith Lord. But they did not know how I struck him down with _sai tok._ Or why. That it was for emotions no Jedi should carry in his heart.>

<That it was for love.> _Qui-Gon reaches out, gently, to stroke Obi-Wan’s cheek—just as he had all those years ago—and that same cheek is once again wet with tears, although the younger man back then had no trace of a beard . . . The fine hairs tickle at his fingers and, despite himself, he smiles . . . but in the gesture there’s no joy._ <Yes,> _he finally admits._ <You aren’t wrong. You were too young, too inexperienced . . . Yoda should have been the one to take on the boy’s training . . . I may have disagreed with the Council often, but now I understand their reluctance . . . It’s far easier to see that only Yoda would have had a chance at teaching Anakin to properly control his strength, to let go of his emotions. And when Anakin _did_ meet with Yoda . . . it was too little, too late—and no fault of yours is that.>

<Master?>

<Why did I fight so hard in life to seek permission to train the boy, only now to double back? Ah . . . No, my Padawan . . . Now I can clearly see that even I would not have been a fitting Master for him. Yes, I had . . . experience . . . but my emotions clouded my judgement. If I could not have released my hopes for him, my expectations . . . I’d have had no business training him. Nor had I any right to put that on your shoulders.>

<I tried.> _Obi-Wan’s knuckles grow pale; if Qui-Gone were a man of flesh and blood, the grip would have broken bones . . . and the realization chills him. He is a Jedi. He might cry on Bant’s shoulder but he should not behave this way before his Master . . . Hastily he slips away his hands, clenching them into fists instead, nails biting at his palms._ <Please. Forgive me.>

_Qui-Gon makes an impatient sound, reaching for his hands, uncurling them, pressing his palms against his Padawan’s. He’s inflicted enough pain upon himself already . . ._

<I have said as much before. There is nothing to forgive. And you did not fail.>

_Yet again Qui-Gon reaches up, stroking Obi-Wan’s cheek, catching there the tears—and for the first time feels the Jedi leaning into the touch. They sit thusly for a while, saying nothing, needing to say nothing for the Force flowing between them, surer than words ever could be._

<What did you feel when you struck him down?> _Softly, the question then, and for the sadness there the subject needs no revelation._

 _Through his fingertips, Qui-Gon feels the set of Obi-Wan’s jaw, the tensing of the muscles, the furrow of his brow. And through his fingertips he whispers_ peace _, whispers_ healing _, whispers_ hope.

<I felt nothing, Master. I loved Anakin, but not what he had become. Anakin had died to me long before we met on Mustafar . . . when I first saw the security recordings of what he’d done . . .  Nor did I hate him. Not even then. In that moment, I . . . I felt the Force more clearly than I ever have . . . Or so I tell myself . . . the Dark Side can cloud everything . . .>

<But you yourself felt no anger in that moment . . .>

<No. And yet, Master, I am still afraid that . . . somehow . . . Did I not strike down Maul with barbarity? And in the end, did I not use _mou kei_ against Vader? There must be darkness in myself, Master, if twice now this is how I fight the Sith . . .>

_The mannerisms of a bodily existence still echo within him and Qui-Gon sighs, such as it were, the breath carried through the Force, and then carefully matches the cadence of Obi-Wan’s own inhalations. Too rapidly he draws his breath—and Qui-Gon can feel something of the same panic rising now within him as did when Bant was in mortal danger._

_Tenderly he raises his other hand, cupping the younger man’s face, taking care that his fingertips rest at his temples and that nothing but the light of the Force flows from him, for just a moment—no personal thoughts, no words. Just Light. And he hopes, in this moment, in the moments to come, that if his Padawan has ever cried out to him for guidance . . . and he has not had the voice to answer . . . he can at least begin to make up for it now._

<Obi-Wan . . . Within the Force exists both the Light and the Dark. Each of us has within us, then, that same Light and Dark, for within each of us is the Force itself. But we can choose—and as Jedi, it is our honor, our obligation, our sacred duty to make such a choice . . . to walk in the Light.

<And in the Light, my Padawan, there is forgiveness. There is mercy. In moments of great emotional strain, sometimes, yes, there is nothing: there is only the stark truth, the reality, before us, and we must act in accordance with that clarity. And sometimes we reach for the Force and our own emotions, despite ourselves, still supercede it . . .

<Be that as it may, do you not remember what you were taught? Redemption flows throughout the Code, and through the Force. Have you not read of fallen Jedi turned back towards the light? Of exiles, cut off from the Force by the Council, who nevertheless, by the will of the Force, found their way back to the Order? Were Sith who were redeemed not said to pass their Trial of Spirit by that very fact—by turning away from their own darkness?

<And so, my young Padawan, if you still so torment yourself with darkness that you wonder to yourself if you are no different than a Sith . . . to you is offered this, from the Light side of the Force: forgiveness, mercy, hope . . . >

_And before Obi-Wan can untangle his tongue, can clutch helplessly at the hollow, futile words that have served only to fuel his own nightmares, he finds Qui-Gon’s lips on his, and it is as if something bores into the center of his being, snuffing out the self-hatred and fear—_

_And he knows then, too, that his Master has known his own trepidation: that Qui-Gon acknowledges with a kiss Obi-Wan's fear that whatever had passed between them not so long ago—that the longing in his dream—had been just that—had been what it always was—one-sided—_

_Once, once, Darkness would have screamed that this is false—that this, yes, this is merely worthless pity—for had Qui-Gon not loved Tahl? And yet he knows—for the Light assures him so—that yes, there was love for Tahl, as he himself held love for Cerasi and for Bant as well as Qui-Gon . . . but there are a great myriad of ways to love . . . and now, together, the Force swirling between them, cast only in Light . . . this is good, and true, and right._

* * *

< . . . and from _me_ , there is love.>

* * *

_The kiss deepens, and Obi-Wan stolidly forgets that he—so skilled across a negotiating table and the Master of Soresu—is clumsy and shy, eager and unknowing. For he has but dreamed of making love this way, and to this man, but it doesn’t matter, really: in all things, as ever and always—even when he couldn’t see it—Qui-Gon is there to guide him._

* * *

_The Master’s hands drop from his Padawan’s temples to tangle gently with his tunic, exploring the ridges of the bones and the broad planes of muscles, the valleys, the fissures of countless scars . . . He does not fully have the words to tell him just how deeply his love runs . . . and how, when Obi-Wan had grown into young manhood, he began to understand the attraction between him. Yes, for years, he had known of his Padawan’s pining . . . but as he edged nearer and nearer to the Trials, Qui-Gon himself had begun to have dreams . . . of finally, finally, being able to offer what it was they wanted—not to his Padawan, but to a Knight . . . and in life, it never was to be . . ._

_But now. How fitting now that in a dream—though no less reality—is consummation?_

* * *

_Obi-Wan studies his Master’s body carefully, awed at its familiarity and . . . something else . . . He remembers many of the scars and from whence they came. He remembers the play of light against the hair on his chest. He remembers innumerable mornings, watching through slitted eyes as Qui-Gon rose to stand by a window—any window—just to catch a glimpse of the sunrise, a whisper of the morning air, and how that predawn glow would spread over his bare torso._

_His hands tremble as he runs them across the latticework of flesh and skin and bone . . . or light wrapping itself into a human form . . . it doesn’t matter, for Qui-Gon is solid and real and alive—beautifully alive in some way that he is sure he will never understand . . ._

* * *

_The dance of their bodies, the cadence of their breath and the quiet notes of cries, brings them closer than all their countless hours sparring, than any mission, than standing together in the shadow of death over life. There is an urgency, but not haste, to how they explore one another, and at times Obi-Wan will pause, overcome, will struggle to blink away the tears that Qui-Gon will so gently kiss . . ._

* * *

_Their lovemaking is a current, a sea, washing over them in undulations: the living Force and the cosmic Force swirling two beings into one, into a great and beautiful Light._

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't expect Bant to have such a large role in this, but damn am I glad she does. <3
> 
> Actually, most of this didn't go anywhere near where I thought it would. I do love not planning my stories for moments such as this.
> 
> Also! KOTOR and KOTOR 2 references!? Yay! <3


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